[p2p-research] Historical anti-materialism

[Christian Siefkes]

Ryan,

Ryan Lanham wrote:
> It is my own view that the anti-market rhetoric becoming so dominant
> here is destructive to P2P.  The giants of the field are certainly not
> against markets, productivity, merit, opportunity nor are they against
> profit.   The discussions of endless surplus and no money are silly and
> have no basis in reality that anyone can see, touch or experience.  It
> isn't futurism, it is nihilism--serving to destroy good while advancing
> the nonsensical.  I feel that if it is not called out, the field of P2P
> research risks becoming absurdly nihilistic just as the general
> discourse of neo-Marxism is absurdly nihilistic.

    In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the
    post-scarcity world, where nobody will have to work very hard just to
    make a living. People will be free to devote themselves to activities
    that are fun, such as programming, after spending the necessary ten
    hours a week on required tasks such as legislation, family counseling,
    robot repair and asteroid prospecting. There will be no need to be able
    to make a living from programming.
        -- Richard Stallman, The GNU Manifesto, 1985

The idea that we haven't yet reached the best of all possible worlds, that
scarcity and want aren't necessarily eternal and unchangeable constraints of
the human condition, and hence, that money and similar want-management
mechanisms may someday become superfluous, isn't something foreign to the
concept of peer production that had to be imported from the outside. It was
there from the very start.

I'll refrain from further comments.

Best regards
	Christian

-- 
|-------- Dr. Christian Siefkes --------- christian at siefkes.net ---------
|   Homepage: http://www.siefkes.net/   |   Blog: http://www.keimform.de/
|   Better Bayesian Analysis:           |   Peer Production Everywhere:
|   http://bart-project.com/            |   http://peerconomy.org/wiki/
|------------------------------------------ OpenPGP Key ID: 0x346452D8 --
I suspect the only taboos that are more than taboos are the ones that are
universal, or nearly so. Murder for example. But any idea that's
considered harmless in a significant percentage of times and places, and
yet is taboo in ours, is a good candidate for something we're mistaken
about.
        -- Paul Graham, Hackers and Painters

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